Friday, December 14, 2012

Who Really Cares About The Poor? ... By That Much?

From Jerry Newcombe at christianpost.comIf you were a casual observer of our culture, you'd assume that the progressives are the ones full of compassion. But is that really the case?

Here we are with our politicians wrangling back and forth on the economy, the deficit, taxes, tax cuts, entitlements, and so forth. Much of the debate really gets back to taking care of the less fortunate.A few years ago, I interviewed Dr. Arthur Brooks, president of American Enterprise Institute and author of the book, "Who Really Cares." He has researched charitable giving for many years.He told me, "There is one question that answers [how generous you are] far and away better than anything else. And that question is: 'How often do you go to church?' Faith matters, faith matters more than anything else in determining whether or not we are giving people to others."Dr. Brooks added: "Imagine you have two people. One is secular and has a socialistic outlook; they believe that it's the government's job to help others. And the other person is a person of faith, who believes also it's their job, as opposed to the government's to help others. You will find that the second person is twice as likely to give as the secular socialist, and will give on average 100 times as much money a year to charity and 50 times as much to explicitly non-religious causes."

People in our society don't realize the strong link is between Christianity and helping the poor. The faith practically invented the concern